Tips for Affiliate Marketing – 077

Affiliate sales can be a lucrative revenue stream, especially during the holiday season. If you aren’t using affiliate marketing, this means that you are recommending another person or company’s product and will get a commission upon sales. Sometimes it can be hard to get started, so here are my best tips for affiliate marketing.

This post contains affiliate links! This means at no extra cost to you, any purchases made through links in the post may result in a commission for me. Thanks for your support!

Listen on YouTube to Episode 77 – Tips for Affiliate Marketing

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Thanks also to Jasmine Commerce for the music for the show!

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TIPS FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

Look for affiliate programs for the things you already use. 

So many different tools, apps, and courses have affiliate programs. Make a list of the things you use, from web hosting to your note-taking apps. Once you have a list of the things you use, check to see if they have an affiliate program. Usually this will be listed somewhere on the website. If not, google it or email the contact person.

When you get an email about a course or program you like, ask if there is an affiliate program.

A few times this year I received emails about courses or summits that were a great fit for my audience. I hit reply and asked if they had an affiliate program because the promotion would be  perfect for my people. Sometimes programs are only open to people who have purchased them. But other times, the creators are open to interested people. When in doubt, ask.

Decide what kind of products & courses you will promote.

Some people will only promote things they have or currently do use. I like to promote things that I have used in the past, use now, or are from someone that I trust enough to recommend without actually using or taking them. There are VERY few people I trust that much. You should decide what feels right for YOU. The programs and items you recommend should be things that you can stand behind or you may risk the trust of your audience.

You will make the best affiliate for products that you are PASSIONATE about. 

Do a mix of evergreen and promotional affiliate sales. 

Evergreen products or programs are things like items on Amazon. They are available at all times (though prices may fluctuate). Promotional products are things like courses that open or close, bundles that are limited times, or sales for specific days. Often the promotional launches will have a larger-scale affiliate program where you’ll get daily emails and sales copy that are designed to help you sell. Which leads me to the next tip.

Plan promotional launches on your calendar so you aren’t all promo, ALL the time. 

Especially when it comes to big launches of courses or larger products, you don’t want to layer too many on top of each other. If you are launching your own products too, you especially need to watch out for this. Try to plan out what launches will happen when (most course creators know months or a year ahead of time when they will run promotions) and put that on your calendar so it doesn’t get too crowed.

Offer an opt-out in your email. 

When you are running promotional affiliate sales over a period of time that will have multiple emails, offer your readers an opt-out. Depending on your email service provider, this may not be possible. In ConvertKit, I simply create a link with a tag that will automatically attach to that person’s email. Then when I send the next promotions, I can exclude the tag from people who aren’t interested in the promotion. This will cut down on the number of unsubscribes. (Read more about why I love ConvertKit!)

ALWAYS DISCLOSE.

For more on this, listen to episode 33. But in short, when it comes to affiliate marketing, you must disclose. This means that in your social media links, you will use a word like ad or affiliate or sponsored. NOT “aff” or “afflink” or “spon.” Those words are not clear to the general masses. Your disclosure should be clear to people who don’t know what affiliate marketing is. In a blog post you should have a statement before any outgoing affiliate links where you state that any sales made by clicking through links may result in a commission for you at no extra cost to them. If you want a longer disclosure explanation, you can have a post and link to that post, but you still need to have a statement that is clearly understood in your post, not simply a link to a post about disclosure. Read a great breakdown of the FTC rules on disclosure here.

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Looking for some good affiliate programs?

• ConvertKit (an email service provider)
• Site Ground (a web host- this is my affiliate link!)
• AppSumo (has deals on apps and programs– gives credit, not cash)
• Affiliate Window (a central program with many brands within it)
• Share-a-Sale (same as above- this is my affiliate link!)
• CJ (same as above)
• Amazon (offers a low commission and a short-lived cookie, but has tons of products many people use)

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What are your best tips for affiliate marketing? Leave them in the comments!